The Devil and Bob Bullock: Video 
Wyatt’s World: Slideshow 
The Devil and Bob Bullock
Can a womanizing, alcoholic, emotionally unstable elected official become one of the most powerful and feared figures in state government? A generation ago, before blogs, YouTube, and the 24-hour news cycle, one did.
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“When do you think I want to do it?” Bullock said. “Tomorrow.”
Making the argument of logistical hardships, possible due process requirements, and other loose ends that needed to be tidied up, the staff convinced him that tomorrow was too soon, but the most time they could buy was three days. Bullock had entered the launch code, and the missile was already rising from the silo.
Three days. It was scant time to prepare all the documents, consult with the attorney general’s office, and make arrangements for the manpower and vehicles required to empty three large liquor stores. The attorney general’s staff warned of “all sorts of due process problems.” Rather than implant caution, that kind of recalcitrance only angered Bullock. “Well, we’re going to need you,” he told an assistant attorney general in San Antonio. “The day after tomorrow, we’re coming down there, and we’re going to seize these places.”
Trucks were rented to haul away the liquor, and arrangements were made to rent storage space at Southern Moving and Storage. The seizure notice was drafted and extra enforcement officers dispatched to San Antonio. On the day before the raid was scheduled, an officer in the San Antonio field office was instructed to visit each liquor store, do a walk-through, and estimate the amount of inventory. The stores varied in size, and the enforcement officer had no experience estimating inventory. His guesswork was likely to be tenuous. Wood still wanted more time.
“Buck, you take the big store,” Bullock instructed. “Don will get the next-largest, and Wayne Oakes [the audit enforcement supervisor] will take the third.”
Assuming that the element of surprise would be important to avoid evasion as well as minimize hostile resistance, they planned to enter the stores simultaneously when they opened at ten o’clock the next morning. As Wood and his crew arrived at the first store, accompanied by a San Antonio police officer, a bobtail truck was backed up to the front door, prepared to haul away the goods. No customers were inside, just a young Hispanic clerk standing behind the counter.
“This business owes the state $405,000,” Wood said, flashing the jeopardy determination papers. “If you pay this amount now, we’ll leave. If you don’t, we’re going to seize the contents of this store.”
No emotion registered on the young man’s face. He opened the cash register and emptied the contents onto the counter. Smiling, he said, “If you wait until dark, I’ll get you some more.”
Wood had no idea what he meant. “I take it you don’t have the $405,000?”
“No.”
“Here’s your notice of seizure,” Wood said. “You’re no longer in charge here.”
For the next several hours, it was impossible to determine who was in charge. The store was huge, and the inventory would not fit into a single bobtail truck. Wood ordered another but soon realized that even two would not accommodate the entire inventory. He called Ray, who told him that he too needed more trucks. Wood called a major moving company, one with real trucks—eighteen-wheeler, semitrailer big rigs.
“Sure, we have trucks available,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “What are we moving?”
“Whiskey,” Wood said.
“We can’t haul whiskey,” the guy said. “You have to have a license to haul that.”
“What do I do to get a license to haul whiskey?” Wood asked.
“It takes federal and state permission.”
He placed a call to Bullock and told him the situation. Bullock called Ben Ramsey, the chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulated intrastate trucking, and said he needed an emergency license to haul whiskey. Ramsey said he’d need to check with his attorneys.
Wood imagined that Ramsey was wondering what kind of trouble he could get into. Ramsey was friendly with Bullock, however, and within an hour, the permits were issued. But other obstacles presented themselves. Wood had procured a forklift and pallets to transfer the liquor from the storage room, but the door had to be removed to get the vehicle inside. Then, the storage room was too small to get the lift inside. Everything had to be manually loaded onto the pallets. Every available field agent in San Antonio was called to the scene.
Once in the trucks, the cases of liquor could not be stacked more than a few cases high because of the potential shifting and damage that could occur during transport. More trucks were summoned—eighteen in all just to the largest of the liquor stores.
Finally, the first truck left for the warehouse at Southern Moving and Storage, where another problem awaited. While other trucks were still being loaded, Wood received a telephone call from an enforcement officer at the warehouse.
“There’s a problem. I’ll put you on the phone with the guy in charge of the warehouse,” the agent told him.
“We can’t store liquor,” the manager told him. “You have to be bonded. You have to have a permit . . . a federal permit.”
Wood called his boss, who had remained in Austin, waiting to see how the seizure was going before making an appearance in San Antonio. “Bullock, we have a real problem,” he said. “We need a federal permit to store this stuff. I don’t have the time for it. Somebody else is going to have to do it.”
A couple of hours later, Bullock called and told him the federal permit was in hand. The warehouse manager still was not satisfied.
“This stuff is flammable, and we usually don’t store flammables.”
Several truckloads of whiskey were idling in the parking lot, and Wood was growing impatient. The guy is confusing “flammable” with “combustible,” he thought. “Furniture is flammable,” Wood snapped. “You store furniture.”
At length, the manager relented on that issue but raised another. “I’ve got pilferage problems,” he said. “You’re bringing in thirty-dollar and forty-dollar bottles of brandy. People will walk off with them.”
“Whatever you’ve got to do, do it,” Wood said.
More headaches. At two o’clock in the afternoon a constable delivered to Wood formal notice that a hearing would be held at three on an injunction to stop the seizure. That much he had anticipated. He drove to the attorney general’s San Antonio office and found a group of nervous assistant AGs. “We don’t know anything about tax law,” the head of the office told him. “You’re going to have to handle this.”
Faced with such persistence, Wood agreed. His job was not to try cases, but he knew a little about the situation he was facing. There was, for instance, a provision of the tax law that prohibited a state court from enjoining the enforcement of a tax. At the hearing, the liquor store’s attorneys made their case first, then Wood got his shot at the owner.
“You’ve been sitting on these bills for years,” he said. “Why haven’t you paid your taxes?”
The questioning was designed not so much to block the injunction but to get the judge’s sympathy and persuade him that the liquor dealer was not a sympathetic figure. It seemed to work, even before Wood played his hole card.
“Judge, you simply don’t have the right to issue an injunction,” he said, citing the statute.
Without hesitation, the judge said, “That’s right. I don’t have jurisdiction. The injunction is denied.”
Back at the liquor store, a crowd was beginning to gather. Word of the raids had gotten out and made the noon newscasts. Now more reporters and camera crews were swarming the place. Wood paid the spectators little attention until five o’clock, when the forklift driver, not an agency employee, shut down his equipment and said, “End of the day. I’m gone.”
Wood pleaded with him to stay. “We’ve got to have you. We’ll pay you overtime,” he said.
“Can’t do it. I’ve got to pick up my kid.”
Wood approached the audience and shouted, “Can anyone here operate a forklift?” He had no authority to hire anyone. No vouchers. No way to follow normal procurement procedures. One man stepped forward. They negotiated a price and he went to work.
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